Was about to vigorously shoot it down, then I saw the rationale you and reznick had. Thought provoking. In that way, sheer domination of an ATG who was viewed at the peak of his powers, it might be the greatest HW win of all time. Liston Patterson is the only one that comes to mind as rivaling it in that respect, but Liston was only slightly more dominant than Foreman in the fight, and also neither was as good an ATG as Foreman Frazier.
Tyson Spinks has to be up there. And maybe by the end of the year, we could add Kovalev Ward to the list? Depending on how the fight pans out.
I'd agree that Joe was past his best - at the very least on the night. That's the story of most of these fights, though. Willard was past his best and not that good to begin with, Duran and Dempsey were past their best vs Tunney and Hearns, Ali was past his best vs Frazier. Tyson and Foreman probably wasn't at their best on the night vs Douglas and Young. Neither did McCallum seem to be vs Kalambay. It's also a fair argument that Leonard had a bit of an off-night vs Duran (and that was a close, hard-fought affair). Some say the same for Benitez vs Leonard and Foreman vs Ali, as well. And Louis vs Schmeling. But all these guys were in their primes, though. Pea vs Chavez? I think you can make a fair argument for most of the above.
Can there be any other result though between Foreman and Frazier? Its not like Frazier was an old fighter at that point. A lot of times guys look past prime just because they got their ass kicked. When in actuality at any point in their career the same guy just destroys them with ease.
You won't hear me say that "FOTC Frazier" would beat Foreman that night. But he did seem like he lost a step post FOTC.
Not for me. There's a small handful of best ever victories imo. Fitzsimmons vs Corbett Armstrong vs Ross Leonard vs Hagler Those are my top 3. Then there's a whole host of next best category like Duran v Leonard, Ali v Foreman, Langford v Flowers. Foreman v Frazier is the next category down imo.
In regards to scoring a brutalizing knockout of an undefeated king of the hill, yes, nothing beats this. Tyson over Spinks, Liston over Patterson and Hearns over Duran follow in that order. Can't think of any other quick destructions between the best champion and challenger at the moment. Foreman KO2 Frazier isn't the "greatest" win in history but it's up there. One of the best but not the greatest. Frazier UD 15 Ali Schmeling KO 13 Louis Ali KO 8 Foreman Foreman KO 2 Frazier Louis KO 1 Schmeling Douglas KO 10 Tyson Bowe UD 12 Holyfield Holyfield MD 12 Bowe Ali KO 14 Frazier Tyson KO 1 Spinks Liston KO 1 Patterson These are the greatest heavyweight victories.
Well, not much in real life, but that's what this forum is all about,...where we can engineer this matter of primes.